I have nearly two months worth of footage and feel that I have an overwhelming amount of material already (over eight hours of footage). I am now beginning to wonder whether my original concept of the piece is limiting in some way. There will be a novelty to watching the tides go in and out and the seasons change but there is an emotional journal developing which I don’t yet understand or have the perspective to begin to edit (which was my original plan). There is also a sense of what is happening in the rest of the world too and whether that will come in to the piece. The riots in London had a quite profound effect on me. Some of what happened started on the streets I grew up on.

My original plan was to post excerpts of some of what I have so far but I don’t think I am going to be able to do this until I have a sense of the bigger picture and the distance to look at the footage properly and see what is there. I don’t yet know what the film is going to become. Luckily I have quite a long time to do this in. It may even be the end of the year before I start actually editing (so I can get the full picture).

So far I seem to have alternated between feeling trapped by the project and liberated by it. The process gives me time both for this film and developing other work.

It is like there is a flip switch somewhere in my brain that keeps needing resetting. It is labelled slow down and be present. I only feel trapped when I think about the future and the months to come, not when I am in the here and now, which is what the film is about. In fact, I am really enjoying the beginning of autumn. This place is at it’s most beautiful when the seasons are changing.